As the hardreading staff painstakingly chronicled, the Boston Globe dropped Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead comic strip last August. At the time of the Zipectomy, we had this to say about the management at the stately local broadsheet:
Boston Globe editor Brian (Hey – let’s reimagine the paper! We can use John Henry’s garage!) McGrory has now become a first-ballot entry into the Comic Strip Hall of Shame.
Well, we officially take that back, because Zippy himself is back. McGrory’s media culpa appears on page 2 of today’s Globe.
From our Before ‘n’ After desk, here are Saturday’s comics pages.
And here are today’s.
And the triumphant return of Zippy.
We’d like to think we had something to do with the Globe’s coming to its senses, but we doubt that’s the case. Still, live and let learn, that’s our slogan.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 
So that’s what was added, but what was cut?
Day 1 and 2 of the two new strips – awful, just awful.
Here are the six that are gone:
Monty – a big loss
Big Nate – a loss
Frazz – too smug for its own good
Heart of the City – no loss
Prickly City – addition by subtraction
Cornered – meh
I read the comics every day. I’d say this latest net loss of 3 strips results in a very mixed bag of changes. Not a pinhead fan, and just based on Days 1 and 2, the two new strips look awful.
I think these are the 6 that were cut, in the order they used to appear:
Monty – a big loss
Big Nate – a personal loss, one of the few strips my son and I shared
Frazz – too smug for its own good
Heart of the City – no loss
Prickly City – addition by subtraction
Cornered – no loss
Can someone explain how 30-year old reruns of the sexist, humorless For Better or For Worse still has page space? Do they pay the papers to run it?
I guess I’ll get used to the new lineup – I can be happy there are still a page and a half, for now….
Yeah, Mike – I liked Monty too (although I remember when the strip started out as Robotman and Monty was the hapless sidekick).
The rest go pretty much unlamented at the Global Worldwide Headquarters of Two-Daily Town.
I agree 100% with your list. My kids loved Big Nate. I read the comics daily, also, even the ones I don’t like. I could do without Heart of the City and Prickly City for sure, but Monty was probably my favorite.
Re-runs of For Better or For Worse are horrible, and Doonesbury is crappier the second time around.
Cause for celebration becomes cause for cancellation with the loss of Monty, the most consistently clever and laugh-out-loud strip they had. Start the crusade!
Go get ’em, Bill.
Thankfully they continue to provide Monty online: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2011/09/09/monty/Ll51CI9rBKg99HooORYAlO/story.html
– but not in the ePaper. I’ll take it. No peace without Fleshy.
Good to know, Bill.